かかしのチナちゃん遊園地へ行く　– Scarecrow Chinatsu goes to an amusement park –

追記

2020年5月より、私は姫路市安富町の”地域おこし協力隊”として、姫路市と地域住民の協力のもとにかかしの里のあるこの地域と以前よりも深く関わるようになった。それもかかしが繋いでくれた縁によるものだ。

何故、私はかかしやこの村に興味を持ったのだろう？
世界的に見れば人口爆発が起こり世界人口80億人を目前にしている現代、日本やその片隅の村で少子高齢化・過疎化が進んでいくことの果たして何が問題なのだろうか？

このプロジェクトをスタートさせてから3年以上、私はずっと自問自答してきた。
今、地域の方々と一緒になり活動をする中で、少しずつではあるがそれらの答えが見えてきたと感じている。

今日、世界規模で見ればそれらの問題は小国・島国日本の小さな問題であろう。
しかし、過疎地域に焦点を当ててみると幼い頃から慣れ親しんできた山や川、水や空気、学校や家、どれもがそこに住むまたは故郷とする人々のアイデンティティを形成する要因となっている。ひとりひとりの郷土愛が地域コミュニティーを支え、日本固有の文化や伝統を守り継承してきたとも言える。過疎地域の人々は自らを構成するそれらが、ゆっくりとけれど着実に廃れゆくことに寂寞の思いを感じていることも確かだ。

私達に出来ることは、今はまだ些細なことかもしれないがいずれ人類が直面するそういった問題をまずは知るということではないだろうか。

私が出会ったかかし達には、日本社会の問題と人々の想いが一体となり哀愁となって現れている。そんな姿に、経緯や過程は違えど、自らのアイデンティティの一部を失い、故郷を去った私は惹きつけられたのかもしれない。

Postscript

Since May 2020, I have been more involved in the Scarecrow Village than ever before as a member of the “community-reactivating cooperator squad (地域おこし協力隊, Chiiki Okoshi Kyoryoku Tai),”thanks to the cooperation of Himeji city and the local residents of this area.
I have to say thank you to the scarecrows again; I believe they brought me such a wonderful opportunity.

What made me interested in those scarecrows and the village?
The population has been declining in Japan, especially in small villages, due to depopulation and aging. But the world population has been exploding and almost reaches 8 billion. Then why is this a big problem in Japan?

I had been asking this question to myself for the past 3 years since the beginning of this project in the Scarecrow Village.
Throughout the work with its villagers, I think I found the answers little by little.

On a global scale, aging and depopulation, the problems we currently face in Japan, can be seen as merely small matters on a little island.
Looking at depopulated areas like this village, however, I believe that such problems have a very big impact on people living there. Everything in this village has been with them and shaped their identity for a long time, including mountains, rivers, water, air, schools and home. We can say that each resident’s love for the village has supported this local community and even preserved and inherited the unique culture and traditions in Japan. It is also true that people in such depopulated areas feel lonely because those factors creating their identity have been abolished slowly but steadily.

So we first need to learn about those problems which will be inevitable around the world at some point in the future, although we might only have a few small steps as solutions at this point.

The scarecrows I met there were full of melancholy; I believe this came from the combination of depopulation and local residents’ thoughts. Each of us has a different background, but maybe I felt closer to them and got attracted by such melancholiness as a person who also lost a part of identity and left the hometown.